Last updated: 12/23/2022
253 Southwest StreetBellevue, OH 44811
233 York St.Bellevue, OH 44811
Sunday, Saturday
12 PM - 4 PM
Adults: $10
Seniors (over 60): $9
Children (5-12): $5
Children under 5: Free
Bellevue, Ohio has been a major rail town since its humble beginnings and the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum has been preserving and celebrating eastern Ohio’s culture and heritage since 1976. Visitors to our museum will enjoy exploring our vintage, life-size trains, a walking tour of our historic exhibits, and more!
The museum collection includes locomotives both steam and diesel, freight and passenger cars, cabooses, and unique items such as a “V” blade snowplow, an operational 200-ton wrecker, and the first dome passenger car built in the United States the Silver Dome. Many of the cars contain displays that interpret various aspects of railroad history. The museum also sports a restored depot, watchman’s tower, and Section House.
There are artifacts to interest everyone visiting, from old paper documents regarding the operations of trains, to the china and silver settings used on the luxury passenger cars, to track maintenance tools, and how communication has developed from early lamps and hand signals to modern radio communications between crews and dispatchers.
Making this museum collection unique is the fact that you can climb into the locomotive cabs, sit in the Engineer’s seat, or step into the cabooses and see how the early Conductors worked and lived when on the road. A passenger coach, sleeper car, dome, and dining car portray passenger travel in the late 1940s-50s era before the automobile became the preferred travel mode and took the passengers away from the rails.
Opened in 1976, the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum is a lasting bicentennial project and a tribute to the transportation industry that helped to shape our country. Founded by passionate and concerned citizens of Bellevue, Ohio to preserve the area’s railroad heritage.
Located just south of downtown Bellevue on a historic plot of land is a wealth of local history which is well preserved and presented at the Mad River & NKP Railroad Society Museum. The Mad River and NKP Railroad Society Inc. (incorporated in Ohio as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization was founded in 1972 by Mr. Jean Leonard, a local pharmacist and railroad historian of Bellevue, Ohio. In 1976, the museum was opened as a lasting bicentennial project. Starting with one wooden caboose and vision, a fledgling group of railroad enthusiasts began building a museum that has spanned four decades and grown to become a nationally known and respected institution.
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